One recent advance in neuroscience is the use of optogenetic tools to perturb neural circuits, particularly neural circuits with cell-type specificity. These optogenetic tools enable optical stimulation of neurons using light-sensitive ion channels (such as transfection occurring from viral vectors carrying opsins such as ChR2 or Halorhodopsin) for optical stimulation and neuromodulation applications. For example, a transfected neuron may be selectively activated or silenced as a result of exposure to a certain wavelength of light. Optogenetics allows experimenters or medical practitioners to use light stimulation to selectively excite neural channels and/or inhibit other neural channels with high precision.
However, in devices where neural sensing is combined with neural optical stimulation, the neural sensing elements experience increased noise and artifact from the photoelectrochemical (PEC) effect, also known as the Becquerel effect. The PEC effect results in artifacts of electrical signals that interfere with or obscure the recording of desired neural electrical signals, thereby interfering with the function and operation of neural optogenetic devices. Thus, there is a need in the neural device field to create an improved opto-electrical device with artifact reduction. This invention provides such an improved opto-electrical device.